green cronyism (page 11)

The debate over renewable energy giveaways in North Carolina really boils down to a choice. Do legislators serve the interests of citizens of North Carolina, or do they serve the interests of a powerful industry group? In my phrasing, it’s not much of a choice. I see it…

Travis Fisher, an economist at the American Energy Alliance who is from North Carolina, writes in The Charlotte Observer on freezing the state’s renewable energy portfolio standards (RPS) mandate: From 2007 to 2013 U.S. production of natural gas from shale formations grew an amazing 783 percent, thanks to innovations such…

This has been a week to remember for the Unsustainable Energy sector, the Puyi of the Carolinas. A campaign of utter nonsense, phony free-market posing, and shameless flat-out begging (which negated the campaign’s economic nonsense and free-market posing, if anyone took the time…

The N.C. Sustainable Energy Association is advertising on Facebook and presumably elsewhere to have people thank state senators responsible for SB 447. The bill would satisfy the solar industry’s big need: keep handing out huge tax credits for investing in solar. The 35% — thirty-five percent! — tax credit…

Weaksauce whining from an industry supposedly as strong as NC’s solar. Complaints like these underscore that solar’s business model is proud to be entirely dependent upon government support (what the Taxpayer Protection Alliance calls solar’s “Subsidy-Based Business Model“). From the Charlotte Observer: The measure “dramatically disrupts the investment…

That was the theme of my most recent newsletter, and it has been an ongoing subject of mine for years. Right now the green expensive electricity energy lobby is out in force working to get lawmakers to think of electricity generation as a jobs program, to support…

Politicians and media cheered the passage into law of Senate Bill 305, which would allow the North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency to sell its ownership in four power plants to Duke Energy Progress for $1.2 billion, reducing NCEMPA’s $1.7 billion debt to $480 million. The bill is expected to yield…

A brief search of the JLF network of sites shows I am the only one to use the term enthymeme. That being the case, I suppose I should explain myself before poking fun at one published today in The News & Observer about the need for a clean energy plan…